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When I first chose The Birmingham News as my media outlet, I had mixed feelings. While I had wanted a ‘major’ newspaper like USA Today, I was surprisingly pleased when I realized I would be able to find out information about my new hometown. Being from South Florida, I don’t know very much about the happenings in Birmingham, so I began to look forward to this ongoing project.

I began researching The Birmingham News by looking over their site to see how it’s organized. The homepage features ‘Today’s Top Story’ which immediately grabbed my attention. They have many videos and photos featured as well, including pictures of their main news anchors. At the top of the homepage there are many different sections to click on, like Weather, Sports, and Entertainment. When you click on a section, multiple tabs are located underneath. For example, Dining, Arts, and Music are located under Entertainment.

When looking at multiple news stories, I first came across one titled “Alabama senator calls teacher pay raises unbiblical, defends raise for legislators.” The new story is all about how Senator Shadrack McGill (R-Woodville) believes a pay raise for teachers is not a good idea. He states that teaching is a calling and if the pay is increased, more people will want to become teachers even if they don’t feel called. The story was presented alright, but I was confused when, in the middle of the story, it was said that McGill had supported a pay raise in the past. I wanted to know why that had changed, but the news story didn’t explain it very well. Overall, though, the story was readable.

I then read a story titled “Cooper Green Mercy Hospital $1 million behind in unpaid debts.” The title was catchy and the story was very readable because many facts were listed and there were multiple questions answered as to why they are in debt. I liked the presentation of this news story better because the story was longer (more information was given) and was broken up in many smaller paragraphs, making reading the story much more enjoyable and less overwhelming.

After briefly looking over this site and reading a few stories, I’m looking forward to finding out more about Birmingham through The Birmingham News.